The present application claims priority to Japanese Application No. P2000-241909 filed Aug. 11, 2000, which application is incorporated herein by reference to the extent permitted by law.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the technical field of a solder ball pitcher supplying solder balls for chip parts using solder balls as terminals, such as a BGA (a ball grid array), a CSP (a chip size package) or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
A large number of solder ball supply jigs structured to make it possible to simultaneously supply a large number of solder balls to a terminal face of a chip part have been already developed, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 7-25477.
However, development on any device or jig, which permits supply of solder balls one by one to a chip part, has not been developed yet.
For that reason, considerable difficulty is encountered in activities of restoring a defective unit of the chip part to a non-defective unit.
For instance, a defective unit is produced in some cases as a whole of a set in the process of passing a substrate packaged with a BGA into a product through an assembly process. In such cases, the BGA package has to be once removed from the substrate.
Since the BGA is nowadays a considerably expensive chip part, it is preferable to reuse the BGA removed from the substrate, if the device itself is still functioning. However, removal of the BGA from the substrate causes application of heat to the solder balls, resulting in unavailability of the solder balls. Thus, before remounting the BGA to the substrate, it is required to perform the process of mounting the solder balls to the terminal face of the BGA again after once completely removing solder from the terminal face of the BGA.
However, the solder ball is a standardized product having a diameter as considerably small as 0.76 mm, 0.6 mm or the like. Restoration of the BGA presents a problem that much manpower is required for mounting the above considerably small-sized solder balls one by one with a pinsetter or the like to the terminal face of the BGA.
One preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a solder ball pitcher, which can easily supply solder balls one by one to a chip part such as a BGA.
A solder ball pitcher according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention includes a solder ball housing chamber for storing a plurality of solder balls, a solder ball supply passage unit connected to the solder ball housing chamber for allowing supply of a plurality of solder balls in a row, and a solder ball delivery mechanism placed at a solder ball supply opening at the tip end of the solder ball supply passage unit as to deliver the solder balls one by one in sequence through the solder ball supply opening.
When the solder ball pitcher of the present invention having the above structure is inclined at a predetermined angle or more with the plurality of solder balls stored in the solder ball housing chamber, the solder balls in the solder ball housing chamber are supplied in a row through the solder ball supply passage unit. Then, the solder balls within the solder ball supply passage unit can be delivered one by one in sequence by the solder ball delivery mechanism through the solder ball supply opening at the tip end of the solder ball supply passage unit.
According to one preferred embodiment of the present invention, the solder balls may be supplied in a simple ways one by one to the chip part such as the BGA, providing high efficiency in working when pin-point mounting of the solder balls is required.
According to another preferred embodiment the present invention, it is possible to provide the solder ball pitcher of considerably high operability enough to perform the pin-point mounting or the like of the solder balls easily through the one-handed operation of pushing a pusher with a thumb while gripping the solder ball pitcher in one hand.
According to still another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the release lever is allowed to translate by the release link and the follower link, whereby providing higher operability of the pusher.